I'm not sure that Zii has matured a lot, but I think she's managed a little character development since we first saw her. She's come dace to face with the consequences of her actions enough times that she now has to admit that actions have consequences.

Osaru Sensei wrote:S/he also seems a lot friendlier as a woman than a man, or is that just my imagination?

I think it's an artefact of the way the story has gone. We've mostly seen male-Angel being an aggressive rival to Dillon and Zii, when he's to some extent the villain of the comic, and certainly a bit of a jerk. We've seen female-Angel trying to get Jerzy to accept her nature, flirting with Richie, and teasing Ruby quite gently - dealing with people she likes, in other words, and not showing her creepy stalker side. So of course female-Angel looks like a nicer person on average.

And I don't think we're seeing female-Angel here, if that's what you mean. We've been reminded of Angel's anatomical sex, at the same time that the fight has wound down - but Angel's actual current presentation is a bit indeterminate.

I didn't mean it like that, I meant in general. But your interpretation of events makes me see that it wasn't just my imagination.

Artemisia wrote:First of all, if it helps, Ang can be referred to as 'they'. It has been used for centuries as a gender neutral singular when one did not know the specific gender of an individual, and in today's parlance, it has been used by people who are gender fluid or gender neutral to refer to themselves or by people to refer to them.

But how can you tell which one of the characters in the strip I'm referring to if I use 'they'? Since it's not just Angie/Angel speaking, there'd be no contextual cl-...

Oh. Oh. You meant the 'friendlier' segment of my post. Okay, that makes more sense.

She is indeed a wonderful artist who could doubtless turn her hand to anything, but from what I've seen, I don't get the feeling that she's very interested in depicting some of those bits in all their wrinkly Lovecraftian glory.

Wanna chat with me in realtime? Click my webpage button. In case I happen to be online, anyways...He who sees his own doom can better avoid its path. He who sees the doom of others can deliver it. –– Eldrad Ulthran, Farseer of UlthwéThe very moment I understood Callie was my fav character.High Priestess in the Church of Brasca

cellabella wrote:I'm actually a little shocked that the authors went there with having them physically rough each other up to the point where there are injuries possibly bad enough to get Dillon bounced from his movie. I understand the violence is supposed to be "slapstick" and the "rule of funny" and so forth, but I had to take a hiatus from the MA3 boards because Yuki's behavior during her psychotic breaks made me ill. I find nothing funny about people railing on each other. To each their own, but ... yeah.

I am sure business-minded Ruby has a solution for it, or the magic of comedy will cure them. But yeah, I didn't find the violence all that amusing, and I hope that the next few strips have a moment where Angel and Dillon have to deal with the consequences of behaving in such a manner--they (or Angel, at the very least) seem like they're overdue.

cellabella wrote:I see your point, but Dillon has been fairly biphobic, at least when it comes to males, from the time Matt cheated on him with Sandra. He's also being fairly transphobic here and quite misogynistic, as you point out. Femininity is not judged by how good you do or don't look in a dress. Angel's motives are a little more clear to me. Xe knows that Xe isn't exactly what Jerzy wants, because for whatever reason, Jerzy is biphobic as hell, as well. That's been the sticking point for me ever since the Jerzy/Angel/Dillion stuff played out.

I actually haven't been paying much attention to any bisexuality in the strips, are there any examples where biphobia has been addressed in the comic as well as other issues? Or is it more focused on people growing into/figuring out their sexuality? I feel like bisexuality hasn't really been distinguished as well as other sexualities have, within this comic (but I feel like it has been a little more with Gary). Unless I am missing or forgetting something, other than Zii.

cellabella wrote:Like with Zii, I have a soft spot for Dillon. They both have done stupid stuff, but I think it was not out of malice. I think Dillon got a raw deal... Jerzy is a spineless ass whose inability to acknowledge that he is bisexual directly led to Dillon being hurt and Angel, as well. Xe is binding, no doubt, because xe wants to be as male as possible for Jerzy.

Yeah, I was just so miffed by how they were both acting and throwing comments around, but, as I said in my other post, it just shows how awful people are when they are angry or hate someone else to such an extent.

I agree on Dillon getting a raw deal. When Amber "tested" Jerzy for Dillon, to see if he was gay, Jerzy gave the impression that anything lacking a penis repulsed him, but that obviously wasn't the case. Jerzy himself doesn't seem to even understand or wish to fully explore his own sexuality to figure out if he's bi or if he's just bonking Angel because it's familiar/easy/effortless territory. Throw that in with Angel, who has Jerzy on a leash and who doesn't respect any relationship he has with anyone that isn't Angel, and Dillon definitely got dealt a bad hand.

Dillon probably feels hurt for a multitude of reasons, most of which seems to be that the men he dates end up being dishonest or disingenous in a way that affects the relationship. However, instead of being biphobic, I hope that Dillon walks away from all this with more of a "Obviously, Jerzy isn't that great a guy and isn't any better than any other of the guys I've dated, you can just keep him."

I also hope Angel eventually gets over their obsession with Jerzy and suffers some consequences for their selfish behavior. Dillon actually seems to be developing and growing a bit from all this, while Angel and Jerzy just seem to be regressing, so I have some hope that he'll move onto better things.

I already touched on that in my first/original post in this thread, and I never said he wasn't at fault for how the relationship ended up. I just focused on the things that inherently set this relationship up for failure.

...and here I thought characters were individuals with their own personalities, flaws (and boy are they flawed), likes and dislikes. My bad. I'll report for re-education at once. I need to fix my Problematic Radar anyway, it seems to be broken.

Must. obey. the. collective.

That aside, I think Angel looks far better in a dress than either Zii or Dillon would.

Shadow Apprentice and proud member of the Dream Team
ignorance is bliss? ...no, its just annoying

Urm, I was actually asking for someone to point out specific examples of biphobia/transphobia to me, because I am bad at paying attention to these sort of things. Specifically, I was interested in what LGBT issues the comic explicitly addresses versus the type of issues the comic accidentally/unintentionally/passively addresses, and how that affects its portrayal of LGBT issues.

I was not denying or confirming anything about how those issues were portrayed, I just wanted a more elaborate/critical discussion on the topic to broaden my perspective a bit. I did not intend to start an argument focused on absolutes.

Hi, I'm just seeing your comments now. Today's strip covers the transphobia, but the past few strips have, as well, and Dillon during his first date with Jerzy openly expressed his biphobia because he was still sore over Matt. As far as Jerzy is concerned, I may have read it wrong (I'm one person who didn't "get" that the Alan Rickman character in Love Actually had cheated after all, even though apparently it was "completely clear"), but in the beginning of the arc where Angel feminizes their look, which attracts Richie, Angel and Jerzy are having a conversation, and I seem to recall it was made fairly clear that although Angel took pains to present as male for Jerzy, Angel made the comment that xe knew that Jerzy was making an "exception" in xer case as far as the sex they were having.

As Jerzy had sex with cis females (i.e. Zii) before and presumably enjoyed it, and to me, the conversation Angel and Jerzy were having strongly implied that he was having sex with xer in the same way that he would with a cis female, but was "dealing with it" because it was Angel. This to me is an indication of deep biphobia, because Jerzy seems so invested in having a "100% gay male, Kinsey 1 billion" identity while it is clear that he is attracted to cis women on some level. I think I said in the original conversations during this arc that I wished Amber hadn't spilled the beans about Dillon watching because it would have been interesting to see Jerzy's natural reaction to seeing her bare arse. Something tells me that it would have been waaaaayyyyyyyyy on the other side of disgust.

ETA: Dillon's transphobia has everything to do with his implication that "femininity" has everything to do with how you look in a dress and other cis female stereotypes, when transgenderism is not about that at all. A transwoman does not have to look stereotypically "feminine" to be trans. Dillon has been spouting some really mealy mouthed Fox News-like snippets about trans issues and gender identity, and I'm not happy about it or understanding it at all.